Assessment Portfolio

I.

Introduction
Jim is a ten year old student in the fifth grade at Village Elementary School in West

Windsor, New Jersey. Jim lives at home with his mom and dad, and he is an only child. He has
a couple chores around the house such as putting away his own laundry and taking out the trash
but he does not get an allowance from his parents. Both of Jims parents work in Philadelphia.
They work for the same software company and are very good with computers. Despite his
parents being so technologically savvy, they make sure that Jim does not spend too much time
with these devices. He does not have a television in his room, but does enjoy watching it once
his homework is completed. He is also able to play with the family IPad, but currently their
home computer is broken. Jim does not have a set bed time but he says he is usually in bed by
around 9pm.
Jims favorite subject in school is gym and his least favorite subject is Spanish because
he doesnt understand it. He likes reading, considers himself a good reader, and even has his
own library card. Jim doesnt like to read magazines and doesnt really enjoy non-fiction. He
usually reads by himself and does enjoy reading in his free time at home. When asked if he
preferred girl or boy main characters, he responded that gender did not matter as long as the
character was relatable. He reports that his friends like to read but does not see his parents
reading much. In school, students are asked to stop and jot important thing while reading and
Jim says that is one of the goals he would really like to work on to become a better reader.
II.

Independent Reading Conference

On November 13, 2014, Jim was asked to read aloud a portion of his current independent
reading book, California Condors by Patricia A. Fink-Martin. This is a grade-level appropriate
book for Jim and perfect for the unit the class just began about non-fiction. At this time, a
running record of his oral reading miscues was recorded and a brief comprehension check was
taken. In terms of comprehension, Jim understood the book well. He was able to summarize the
pages after hed read it orally and answer any questions I had for him regarding comprehension.
Jim was able to tell that California Condors were alive for thousands of years, even before
Sabertooth tigers became extinct. Jim was able to explain that condors are scavengers, meaning
that they feed on dead animals that they have access to. He was also able to remember how
California Condors were described in the book, as black with a large white stripe on the massive
wings.
In terms of word recognition, Jim had 2 miscues. The two miscues all involved him
stumbling over words or repeating words or groups of words. Upon noticing his mistakes, he
quickly self-corrected. The miscues that he had done did not affect his comprehension of what
he was reading, and were fixed immediately after he said them. The words that Jim had trouble
with were decomposing, and mastodons. While Jim read most of the pages fluently and
quickly, he tripped up on his two miscues, mastodons several times. He also switch articles
several times, interchanging the words the instead of a. Once Jim realized his mistakes, he
started to read slower and pause even longer after periods to gather his thoughts. Even though
Jim had a few miscues, they did not affect his comprehension. Jim had previously mentioned
that he did not enjoy reading nonfiction but despite that he was able to comprehend everything
that happened within the pages read aloud.

Jim read the passage fluently with very few miscues. He had no irregular pauses or breaks in
his reading. He was able to summarize the pages from the book well, and understood the
sequence of events within the nonfiction book.
III.

Directed Reading Assessment

On October 16, 2014, Jim was given a Directed Reading Assessment using Fountas &

Pinnell. He was asked to read aloud The Election by Roy W. Sorrels. At this time, he was
reading independently at a 5th grade level. This means that Jim should be able to read grade level
materials with ease. In terms of comprehension, Jim understood the book on a surface level.
With prompting, Jim was able to note all the key understandings from within the text. When it
came to beyond the text, Jim was unable to tell all the key understandings. He acknowledged
that Jill was scared of standing in front of her peers to give a speech. Jim also knew why Jills
mother was able to help her. However, he was unable to recall what advice Jill had received
from her mother about how to calm her nerves. Instead he gave the generic response of just
relax which was never mentioned in the text. Jim looked at the text and was able to explain
why the story stared with a dream. He also cited specific details from the end of the story
showing how Jill would be a good class president and her ideas for improvement. Jim was
unable to show how Jill was scared and made up his own details about someone yelling Wake
Up, or squeezing her eyes. Jim was able to reflect on the ending of the story more than the
beginning because it was fresh in his mind. He did not offer any text-to-self connections though.
Jims comprehension was graded as 5/10 for this section which is slightly below average. This
means that Jim is at the correct independent reading level and can still improve in terms of
comprehension.

Jim read the passage fluently and used good intonation. He read in phrases and paused
appropriately at ending punctuation. The total word count was 204 words and Jim had a total of
3 miscues, leading to 99% accuracy. In terms of fluency, Jim was able to read with appropriate
phrasing and slowed down only to self-correct. Sometimes he paused too much, taking longer
pauses within sentences where it was not appropriate and disrupted his fluency. Jims ratio of
self-corrections was 3:2. Several times he began stumbling on a word and repeated the word to
ensure that he said the whole thing correctly. He also interchanged articles, the instead of a,
similar to what he did during the Independent Reading conference. Yet he realized these
mistakes and went back to use the correct article. The summary of scores concluded that Jims
accuracy was 99%, he scored a 2 on both accuracy and self-correction, and scored a 5 out of 10
on comprehension. This means that although he is able to read fluently, his comprehension is
limited and can still be improved upon.
IV.

Writing Sample

On October 9, 2014, Jim was asked to write a personal narrative. He chose to write a story
about playing Minecraft. The assignment was to be completed in one class period. The students
werent used to complete their writing so quickly and not have time for editing so this would be
somewhat of a challenge. After complaining about his lack of time to do the task, he began to
write his paper and completed it within the time allotment.
In terms of content, Jims narrative had an unclear story structure. There was a clear middle
and ending but the beginning was not very straightforward. Jim began with things happening
within the game of Minecraft with no real reason for playing the game. Jim did not have a lead
in to the story; in fact it began with the same words from his title, When I was playing

Minecraft Jim began almost all of his sentences with I and did not use any transition words.
Without transition words it was difficult to follow the sequence of events. Overall the paper was
not really a personal narrative. A personal narrative is supposed to tell the story of something
that specifically happened to the writer and I do not believe that playing a computer game falls
into this category. Jim did not begin the story with an introduction but simply jumped right into
aspects of the game. This was very confusing for someone who is not very familiar with the
game. Jims descriptions were written but could have been much more detailed. He mentioned
different items needed for spawning new ones in the game such as trees, blocks, gold, coal, iron,
diamond, or even emerald. However he does not say why he needs these specific items or how
to obtain them within the game. The only time this piece explained any emotion was when Jim
said that, I was so excited to make my new armor. It was exciting. His vocabulary could
definitely be expanded upon and more emotion to convey to the reader what he is feeling during
the processes of this game. The story bounced around from topic to topic within the story. Jim
began by wanting to make a skeleton spawner, to making a new set of armor, to defeating the
ender dragon. Jim needed to focus more on one specific event and expand upon it instead of
jumping between multiple ideas. That way he would be able to incorporate more details into his
story.
In terms of mechanics with writing, Jim was unorganized. He jumped from one sentence to
the next, sometimes forgetting punctuation all-together. His story lacked transitions making it
very choppy. The sentence structure Jim used shows that improvement is needed. Most
sentences were simply I did this or I did that; there was little variety. The sentences made it very
hard for the reader to follow. Within the story, Jim tried to explain the process of combining
elements to create a new one in the world of Minecraft. Instead of using transitional words, Jim

made a list of 4 steps in the middle of his narrative. Jim had difficulty connecting his sentences
and especially the list to the rest of his narrative. Jim has a lot of room for improvement with
sentence structure and organization. He forgot punctuation completely in some cases and hardly
used any commas to connect sentences. Almost all of his capitalization was correct and all but
one sentence started with a capital letter.
On October 21, 2014, Jim was given the medium level word list from the Developmental
Study Assessment Word Study Book. Jim has the most difficulty with words containing double
consonants such as baggage or minnow. Jim also had difficulty with words that have
reduced vowels in unaccented syllables. The parts of these words are where the vowel makes a
different sound than they normally would make, words like salute or fountain. Most of these
misspellings were common for the spelling stage he is currently at. In Jims writing sample he
had spelled a few words incorrectly, similar to his words study. Diamond was spelled
dimond and emerald was spelled emerld. These words also contain reduced vowels.
Overall there were very few misspellings in Jims writing sample but I believe he could have
used much higher level words in his writing. If he had there probably would have been a few
more errors but that would have been acceptable for his current level.

V.

Summary

After conducting several informal assessments, I have concluded that Jims strengths as a
reader are his ability to summarize aloud what he read and his word recognition. His weakness
for reading is his ability to fully comprehend what he has read. To further develop this skill as a

reader, Jim should be encouraged to practice summarizing what he has read to others. Within his
classroom, the Reading block allows for 5 minutes at the end to come together with a partner on
the same reading level and share about what was read. I think that Jim should be paired with
someone of a slightly higher reading level that could push Jim to remember key details from the
text. More advanced questions would be asked, generating a more stimulating discussion.
Richard Allington states that there are Six Ts to Effective Literacy Instruction: Time, Texts,
Teach, Talk, Tasks, and Test. I believe that with proper guidance the talking following
independent reading can push Jim to really pay attention to the details of the text and not just
read to complete a book. A min-lesson about what questions to ask while reading the story
would help Jim with his comprehension skills. This would aid him in achieving his goal to postit note better as well. Another skill Jim should develop is reading with more feeling. Although
Jim can read the text very fluently he does not read with as much feeling as he could. It seems
that the way he reads mimics his thinking; he reads to simply complete the selected material.
Instead he should slow down, giving himself time to not only process what hes reading but also
allow him to project more feelings about the text.
Jims strength as a writer was having a strong conclusion. In his writing sample he was able
to explain to the reader the difficult task of defeating the ender dragon and what a great feat it
was that he was able to do so. Jim has the most difficulty in writing with word choice and
sentence structure. Jim is able to write very concise short sentences but does not use the higher
vocabulary words that he could. Fountas & Pinnell states that interactive vocabulary study
focuses on word meanings. If Jim better understands the meanings of words he will be able to
use more interesting words in his writing. The book also offered strategy to Put two or more
sentences on a chart and ask students to think of alternative words that would make the sentences

more interesting. The teacher can model some ideas and then have students try this technique
on their own. I think this would really help Jim with editing his papers and making sure the
details of his story truly capture the readers attention. When it comes to sentence structure, Jim
could change some of his sentences so he does not start all of them with I. Fountas and Pinnell
states that struggling readers and writers need more opportunities to make reading/writing
connections. One way to do this is to use peers writing to help students in their own writing.
Currently in the classroom Jim has the same reading and writing partner who is about the same
level. I believe that they should do more peer editing to expand their syntax. Jim would be
exposed to different sentence forms in other writing and be encouraged to improve his own as
well.
Another way to improve both Jims word choice and sentence structures is extensive
modeling. Writing and reading go hand in hand, and Donalyn Miller, author of the Book
Whisperer states that, If we want our students to read and enjoy it for the rest of their lives, then
we must show them what a reading life looks like. This can also be applied to writing. I
believe that it would be beneficial for Jim to see simple writing samples from the teacher. This
way he is exposed to a higher level of writing and pushed to do better. Research has shown that
there is a link between the reading habits of teachers and the reading achievement of their
students. Because reading and writing are intertwined, this study proves useful. With help from
both his peers and his teacher, Jim can be on his way to becoming a better reader and writer.

Works Cited

Allington, R. L. (2002). What ive learned about effective reading instruction: From a decade of
studying exemplary elementary classroom teachers. Phi Delta Kappan, (83), 740-747.
Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2001). Guiding readers and writers. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Miller, D. (2009). The book whisperer. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.